CJP forwards Khadija’s appeal to SC bench

LAHORE: Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Mian Saqib Nisar on Sunday forwarded stabbing victim Khadija Siddiqui's appeal against the acquittal of accused Shah Hussain by the Lahore High Court (LHC) last week to a Supreme Court (SC) bench headed by Justice Asif Saeed Khosa for hearing.

Siddiqui's lawyer Salman Safdar told a two-judge bench headed by the CJP, which was hearing a suo motu case against Hussain's acquittal at the Lahore registry on Sunday, that they had already filed an appeal against the acquittal.

Hussain was convicted last year for brutally attacking then 23-year-old law student Khadija with a knife in Lahore. His seven-year sentence by a judicial magistrate had been commuted to a two-year sentence by a trial court in March this year.

He was acquitted by the LHC on June 4, with Justice Sardar Ahmad Naeem in his detailed judgement stating: "The injured witness ordinarily is not disbelieved but the circumstances of this case forced me to disbelieve the injured prosecution witness." Khadija Siddiqui stated on the rostrum on Sunday that her character had been assassinated and asked that justice be served.

The court subsequently forwarded the appeal to a bench headed by Justice Khosa for hearing and fixed the hearing for next week. During the course of hearing, the CJP also lashed out at the Lahore High Court Bar Association (LHCBA) resolution passed last week which regretted that the top judge had taken a suo motu notice of the acquittal of the accused in the Khadija Siddiqui stabbing case.

The unanimous LHCBA resolution, which was passed by Shah Hussain's father Advocate Tanveer Hashmi, had stated that since Khadija had the option of approaching the apex court against the LHC ruling, there was no need for the CJP to have taken notice of the matter based on "propaganda" in social media and electronic media.

The resolution said that all the suo motu notices taken by the SC would be deemed unconstitutional if violation of fundamental rights was not found in them and demanded that a full bench of the SC should devise rules on suo motu powers.

"How did you pass a resolution against the Supreme Court?" the chief justice asked the father of the accused Shah Hussain, Advocate Hashmi. "How did you run a campaign against the court?"

"If this had happened with some lawyer's daughter, would you have behaved the same way?" he asked. Speaking to the media after the hearing, Khadija thanked all those who rallied behind her.

“The CJP has taken notice and I am confident that justice will be done,” she said while speaking to journalists outside the court along with her counsels. Shah Hussain while speaking to the media outside the court said that it is his right to file an appeal.

“The court acquitted me,” he said while stating the case is now closed. “I was not proven a convict in the case,” Hussain upheld. Hussain continued, “I was not allowed to speak in my defence and if they have any evidence against me, they should present it in court.”

The LHC verdict in the case had shocked the nation that had supported the law student’s fight for justice after being stabbed 23 times. After the verdict which gives the attacker a clean chit, Khadija had announced that she would challenge it in the top court.